


Together

by Saetha



Series: O Swallow, have mercy on them [Febuwhump 2021 Prompt Fills] [26]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Charles Vane Lives (Black Sails), FebuWhump2021, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, everyone is quite soft, no beta we die like pirates on the gallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saetha/pseuds/Saetha
Summary: “You shouldn’t be up.”Vane just snorts derisively in his direction. James watches as he carefully makes his way into the garden, step by slow step, before sitting down on the bench that Miranda used to love to read in. A sigh escapes him once he finally sits, and he turns his face towards the sky, eyes closed as he enjoys the sun on his skin. He looks oddly vulnerable in that moment, tension slowly draining from the lines of his body.*Vane survives the hanging. Flint takes care of him during the time afterwards.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Charles Vane
Series: O Swallow, have mercy on them [Febuwhump 2021 Prompt Fills] [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138178
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write these two scenes ever since I started writing 'Broken Pieces of the Night' - they both take place before that story, so no knowledge of that fic is necessary. 
> 
> A note on the content – I did NOT tag this as ‘major character death’, even though Vane thinks that Flint is dead in the last bit. But we all know he isn’t – and if you’ve read ‘Broken Pieces of the Night’, you’ll know that Vane will discover that for himself ;).
> 
> Today's prompt was: Recovery.

The sound of Vane’s breathing follows Flint into his dreams. It’s a rattling, fragile thing these days, laborious and unsteady, as if Vane was trying to shift a sack of stones with each rising and falling of his chest. At night, it comes from the mouth of a corpse that doesn’t stop staring at Flint, noose around its throat, drenched in blood of such bright red that it looks like a macabre gaudy tie. It wakes him with a startled shout half-stuck inside his chest until he reaches out beside him, finds the warmth of Vane’s comforting mass under his hands.

But Vane _is_ breathing, and for now, that’s enough.

They’ve carted him back to Miranda’s cottage, as good enough a place as any to defend should any pursuers arrive. Flint has sent Billy out to organise passage to the _Walrus_ and carry a message to the others, let them know that Vane has been rescued, although he is no state to fight, and likely won’t be for quite some time yet. It leaves just Vane and him here, cooped up in this house filled with memories and the broken remnants of a life.

Flint gets up, pats into the kitchen to make himself some tea in the weak light of the earliest morning. Miranda’s herbs have survived, strangely enough, not interesting enough to any looters. He raises the tin to his face, closes his eyes as he breathes in their familiar scent, now tinged forever with the sadness of a life irrevocably lost. He allows himself to feel the full weight of this sadness for a moment, lets it wash over him like waves in the ocean. It isn’t the acute, searing pain from before anymore that would rip through him like a scythe and leave his soul in tatters, but it hurts nonetheless. Will never stop hurting, he suspects.

Vane’s eyes are open when he returns from the kitchen to the bed, following his movements through the room. Flint sets his cup down on the bedside table.

“Want something to drink?” he asks. “I can also warm up some broth, if you think you can stomach it.”

Vane nods once, then shakes his head. Drink, yes then. No food. They go through their usual motions of the morning, or as usual as something can be that they’ve been doing for less than a week. Some tea to drink, before Flint helps him to take care of his bodily needs and gives him a quick wash with a cloth. The fingers of Vane’s right arm twitch a little when Flint helps him move his body as well as he can to avoid bedsores, and Flint takes it as a good sign; for a while he was sure that Vane would never regain any function in his arm at all.

Flint’s fingers hover over the bandages that Vane’s throat is swathed in.

“We need to check on the wound,” he says. “Let me know if you need a break at some point.”

Vane just throws a disdainful glance at him, makes a weak gesture with his left hand to signal him to proceed. Flint knows it must hurt; they have little here in terms of medicines, and he doesn’t dare venture into town to buy some more. Perhaps Idelle and Featherstone can help, next time they pass by the house.

He is careful when he unwraps the bandages, but Vane winces nonetheless, his nostrils flaring. His entire throat is still bruised almost black, scabs of dried blood tracing the line where the rope had cut into his skin. There are no new signs of infection, however, a small blessing at least. The swelling is slowly abating as well, making it easier for Vane to breathe and swallow.

Vane lifts up his chin to give Flint better access to the wound, pressing his lips together at the ache even so small a movement causes him. Flint does his best to clean the wound and renews the layer of salve on top to help with the bruising before rewrapping it with a new pair of bandages.

“Let me see your face,” Flint asks when he’s done. In a show of obedience that would have been unthinkable before, Vane turns back to face him. Flint spreads a little more of the salve on his cheek and around his eyes where the bruises are slowly fading from a mottled black into green and yellow. His fingers linger on Vane’s cheek, following the line of his jaw down to his chin. If this was a different situation, a different time perhaps, he would have kissed him, but for now he lets go again, turns around to busy himself with cleaning up the soiled bandages and re-stoppering the pot with the salve.

He makes breakfast from the supplies they keep stashed here, after which Vane is exhausted enough to drop back into sleep again, despite refusing any food himself. He has slowly been getting better these past few days, even if he is still a far cry from the man he was once was. Might never be again, if what Flint suspects is right. However, there is still something burning inside him, a flame that is apparent when he opens his eyes, and Flint wonders whether he knows the impact that his almost-hanging’d had on the populace of Nassau, the impact that Vane had thought he could only achieve with his death.

After breakfast, he decides to withdraw into the garden, to return to his task of taking stock of what plants have survived the absence of Miranda’s hands. He doesn’t know much about gardening apart from the few treaties that he’s read and the number of times he’s helped Miranda here, but he’s always thought that he’d love to have one. In another life perhaps, where the feared pirate captain Flint is no more than a shadow, a murmur spoken at night behind firm walls. A memory, cast aside and forgotten, and instead there would just be James McGraw and his garden, a plethora of living things to pay homage to the souls of the dead.

Flint shakes his head, digging his hands into the soft earth. It’s just a dream. He pulls out some of the plants that are definitely weeds and has just begun cutting back the squash plants when he hears steps coming out of the house, slow and laborious.

“You shouldn’t be up.”

Vane just snorts derisively in his direction. James watches as he carefully makes his way into the garden, step by slow step, before sitting down on the bench that Miranda used to love to read in. A sigh escapes him once he finally sits, and he turns his face towards the sky, eyes closed as he enjoys the sun on his skin. He looks oddly vulnerable in that moment, tension slowly draining from the lines of his body.

Flint sighs and goes back to his work in the garden. The next time he looks up, Vane is still seated on the bench, as comfortably as possible, eyes open and watching him intently. Flint guesses he’s due for a break anyway, gestures for Vane to remain in place where he is and goes inside to fetch some water. They drink in companionable silence, before Vane retrieves a few pieces of papers, a book, and a pencil from his pockets and begins to write.

 _Why’d you save me?_ His scrawl isn’t exactly beautiful, but legible enough. Flint takes a deep breath, expels it through his nose. He remembers Vane shaking his head at them, so determined to go to his death in the name of a greater cause.

“Because you are worth more alive to us than dead,” he says, raising an eyebrow. Vane snorts again.

 _Not really useful right now though, am I_? he writes.

“I didn’t say you had to be ‘useful’,” Flint corrects him. “Your life is worth a lot more than you think it is. To Anne, to Jack. To me.” He adds the last two words after a moment of thinking, unsure whether he really wants to cross this particular line. Vane looks at him, watches his expression, and it reminds Flint of the night on the Walrus, after he had saved his life from Teach’s blade. As if he had read his thoughts, Vane picks up the pen again.

 _My death would’ve brought Teach back into the game_. He looks so utterly certain of it, his expression serious. _You need his ships more than you need one single pirate captain_.

“And you don’t think that ‘almost hanging you’ will be enough to rouse him into action? I doubt he will let this insult slide, whether you are dead or alive. He might even come to visit you on Maroon Island, who knows.” Flint is utterly certain that Teach will be spurred to act by what has transpired in Nassau. There is no way that he won’t, not when he hears about Vanes’ current state.

 _Maroon Island?_ Vane frowns.

“Well, we cannot remain here forever.” Flint indicates Miranda’s house with a sweep of his arm. “As secure as it seems for now, it’s far too close to Nassau. On Maroon Island you’ll be safe, have all the time and space to recover that you need.”

 _Whilst you are off fighting the war_. His writing has a bitter slant to it, pen pressing deeply into the paper and almost tearing it.

“Yes,” Flint says bluntly. “You did more for this war with your little stunt than you can do killing yourself in a skirmish somewhere. And afterwards, we will rebuild Nassau, make it into the Nassau it should have always been.”

 _Together_. Vane hesitates before he writes the word, hovering for a moment as he considers whether to put a question mark behind it or not.

“Yes.” Flint looks up at him then, makes sure to catch Vane’s gaze with his. “Together.”

*

“You coming?” Anne looks at him from where she’s waiting at the door, a bottle already in hand.

“Be right behind,” Vane rasps. “Go ahead.”

Anne looks doubtful for a second, but then gives him a nod. “We’ll be down by the beach. Don’t be too long.”

Vane shrugs and nods back. They both know he’ll be there eventually. He can already hear the sound of merriment from the Beach, can imagine the smell of alcohol in the air as the flames of the bonfire rise high into the sky. A wake befitting a pirate captain, raucous and loud, and yet suffused with true emotion. He wonders, for a moment, what Flint would think about it all. Flint would scoff, in all likelihood, call it unnecessary, but still leave everybody to their devices, well aware of what a crew needs to be happy. Not that there will be an abundance of happiness in the air tonight – very few people held real affection for the man and most are mourning the loss of a symbol rather than that of a person, but mourning they are, nonetheless. Vane cannot tell where his own emotions are falling, and he doesn’t even try. There had been…something that had developed between them, in those days after the hanging, something that neither of them had wanted to put a name to, but that went beyond the simply physical need that had caused them clash together time and time before.

It is almost fully dark when Vane finally makes his way down to the Beach. The Path is well lit by a number of torches, but he still takes his time. His legs have grown steadier over the past months, but he still finds himself trying to reach out with his right arm to balance himself and failing. Vane curses quietly under his breath but makes it down to the large bonfire safely. Jack and Anne nod at him and clear a space between them, close enough to the fire that Vane can feel the heat in his face. Jack passes him a bottle of rum, and he takes it after a moment of hesitation.

The alcohol burns down all the way, burns even worse in the wounds from the hanging, but Vane takes another swig, closes his eyes, tilts back his head and relishes the pain.

When he opens his eyes again, Jack looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t when he sees the expression on Vane’s face. It’s Anne who speaks first.

“He was a right shit,” she says, and Vane barks out a laugh. “Royal pain in the arse. They were right to fear him, right to follow him. He’ll be missed.” She toasts to the flames. Jack nods along.

“Always better to have on your side than against you,” he adds. “Bloody terror in a fight. Brilliant mind. No remorse. Stubborn as a mule. He’ll be missed.” He, too, raises his bottle to the flames.

“Was a fucking asshole.” Vane still has to take time to puzzle the words together, to form the right syllables in his mouth. It is frustrating, but Jack and Anne wait patiently. “Good brain. Good fight. Good fuck.” And sometimes, he had looked at Vane with an expression so difficult to decipher that Vane hadn’t even wanted to try. It had stripped him naked, down to the very bones of his soul, leaving him vulnerable and comforted alike. No other man has ever looked at him and _understood_ him like this and it had been terrifying and addicting all at once. “He will be missed.”

The flames reflect on the glass of the bottle, dancing on the smooth surface like butterflies in the sun. Jack barks out a laugh and clanks his bottle against Vane’s. They sit and drink, surrounded by the people of Maroon Island and the members of their crew, mingling and telling stories about Captain James Flint and the curse and blessing he had been to so many. Vane wonders how he died, clenches his fist in remembered fury when Silver had brought the news. Funny how, despite all the moments they spent together, they never _did_ seem to have enough time at the end.

Anne and Jack are both snoring in the sand next to him by the time the sky starts lighting with an early morning glow. Vane is still awake, having spent most of the night thinking, reliving memories and taking the occasional swig from the bottle.

He stands up, still unsteady on his feet and walks towards the ocean, away from the fire. The waves lap around his bare feet and he dig his toes into the sand, staring at the sky that is slowly painting itself crimson and gold.

Vane looks at the bottle in his hand, a third of the liquor still remaining in the bottom. He tips it over, watches as the alcohol pours onto the beach and into the waves, slowly getting washed away by the ocean. He still doesn’t know what they really were to each other. Doesn’t know what they could have been, either, although the aching rage in his chest at the fact that he’ll never get to find out is undeniable.

“Promise I’ll take care of her,” he says, eventually, slowly pushing the words out one by one. He wishes he could say so much more, but cannot find the voice, or the words. “Nassau’ll blossom. Wish you’d be here to see it.”

There is no reply, just the crackling of the dying fire and the sound of the waves on the beach.


End file.
